Sudan: incommunicado detentions must stop

Amnesty International welcomes the
decision by the Sudanese security forces to release 32
detainees, including students, peaceful activists and
members of opposition parties who have been detained
incommunicado without charge for months.

However, Amnesty
International strongly condemns the stepping up of arbitrary
arrests by the Sudanese authorities, particularly in Darfur,
western Sudan, where a new internal armed conflict is
developing.

The prisoners, on whose behalf the
organization had repeatedly appealed to the government, were
released from Kober, the main prison in the capital
Khartoum. They were held arbitrarily under the National
Security Forces Act, which allows the security forces to
detain people without charge for up to nine months.

"This
gesture is a step in the right direction and a credit to all
those who have put pressure on the Sudanese government on
behalf of the forgotten prisoners," the organization
said.

"The Sudanese authorities must now put an end to the
practice of prolonged incommunicado detention by reforming
or abolishing the National Security Forces Act which
contravenes international human rights law, and by
immediately charging or else releasing all the persons
currently held incommunicado by the security forces,
including in Darfur," the organization urged.

Arbitrary
arrests and incommunicado detentions

Amnesty International
continues to receive allegations of arrests of members of
the Fur and Zaghawa ethnic group in the context of the
fighting between the Sudanese government and a new armed
opposition group called the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) in
the areas of Kutum and Tina in North Darfur. Due to the
absence of independent observers in these isolated regions
and the practice of the security forces and the army not to
account for detentions, it is impossible to know how many
persons are currently held in Darfur.

In the whole of the
Darfur region, where the SLA started operating in February
2003, the Sudanese authorities have resorted to arresting
and detaining incommunicado many people suspected of
sympathizing with the armed group.

After another attack
by armed militia on Shoba village on 25 July 2003 which
killed about 51 inhabitants, four villagers, Suleiman Tahir
Abdalla, Mohamed Mohamed Tahir, Abu Gasim Musa El Tahir and
Ahmed Dut Hamid were arrested. Several leaders of the Fur
ethnic group, Suleiman Hasab Allah, Mohamed Omer Ibrahim, Dr
Mohamed Issa El Haj, El Fadil Adam Mohamed Ahmed Noorein and
Abdelaziz Abdalla Abdel Mahmoud were also arrested in
mid-July 2003. Four of them are reportedly held at the
security offices in Nyala and have been forced to do harsh
physical exercises and deprived of sleep.

On 29 July
2003, Yusif Ahmed El Beshir, correspondent of the daily
newspaper Al-Sahafa in Nyala, was arrested after publishing
an article on Darfur. The security forces have reportedly
ordered he be detained in the Nyala prison for three months.
Despite being accused of "publishing false news", he has not
been charged with any offence. While he is not currently
ill-treated, Yusif Ahmed El Beshir was previously tortured
by the security forces during his detention in May 2003. The
police in Nyala opened an investigation into his complaints
of torture, but was reportedly told it could not look into
actions by members of the security forces superior in
grade.

At least 45 persons from the Malia ethnic group are
held incommunicado in the Nyala prison. They were arrested
in July 2003 in Adeela in South Darfur following the killing
of members of the Rizeiqat ethnic group by members of the
Malia ethnic group. They have no access to lawyers or
families and are at risk of being tortured in order to give
the names of those responsible for the killings.

"The
Sudanese authorities must as a first step acknowledge the
detention of all persons arrested and allow relatives and
lawyers to visit them. If people are suspected to have
committed offences, they must be charged with a recognizable
offence and tried promptly and fairly; otherwise they must
be released," Amnesty International stressed.

"The fact
that attacks by armed groups on villages of sedentary people
in Darfur are continuing shows that the government's
response to the crisis is failing.The prolonged
incommunicado detention of supposed sympathisers of the
armed groups critics of the government's policy in Darfur
fails to resolve the insecurity in the region and only
creates more bitterness among the population," Amnesty
International concluded.

Background

Among the released
are:

- Lenin El Tayeb, a teacher and member of the
Democratic Front, who was arrested on 24 April 2003 by the
security forces after his three brothers were detained in
order to force him to surrender. He reported that he was not
ill-treated while in detention but his brothers were all
severely beaten by the security forces upon arrest.

-
Abbas El Tigani, aged 26, student at the El Nilein
University in Khartoum and member of the Darfur Students
Union who was arrested on 29 May 2003 by the security forces
as the Union was preparing to elect its officials. It is not
known how he was treated while in detention.

- Elhadi
Tangur, who was arrested in Khartoum on 16 June 2003,
reportedly after participating in a meeting between the Blue
Nile community and General Sumbeiyo, the chief Kenyan
mediator in the Sudan peace talks on the 20 years-old
internal armed conflict in the south of the country. His
family was allowed to visit him only once recently.

-
Salah Mohamed Abdelrahman, who was detained since 9 July
2002 without charge, for unclear reasons and was allowed to
see a relative only in January 2003. His lawyers had
appealed for his release in May 2003, noting that his
continuing detention was contravening even the nine months
period of detention fixed the National Security Forces
Act.

- Ali Shamar and Dr Al Haj Adam Yusuf, members of the
Popular National Congress (PNC) headed by Dr Hassan
Al-Turabi, himself under house detention for more than two
years, were released after months spent in detention without
charge. Some 20 members of the PNC are said to be still
detained without charge.

Prolonged incommunicado
detention is a widespread practice in government-controlled
areas of Sudan. It is one of the numerous human rights
violations in Sudan described in a recent Amnesty
International report Sudan: Empty promises? Human rights
violations in government-controlled areas (index number: AFR
54/036/2003), published on 16 July 2003. View the report
online at
http://amnesty-news.c.tclk.net/maabkaOaaZERObb0hPub/

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